An Analytic View on "Hymn of the City"
             Romanticism, in its entirety, is the love of all the good qualities of earth and its inhabitants. This love also includes the supernatural, mystical, and morale thought along with the physical aspects. "Hymn of the City" is a clear example of a poem from the Romantic Era. The poem explains how God is every where, "thy Spirit is around." In the poem a happy description of the God is given supposedly as he watching over the author's home city. One notices that the author, William Cullen Bryant, uses end rhymes with alternating near and exact rhymes with some examples of similes and personification. Archaic language is also used through out the poem. The poem is written as if the narrator is explaining to his neighbors how God is every where and how he is always watching everyone.
             The first two stanzas reflect the author's feelings toward the city in concern. The writer claims that God walks among the people of the city, "Thy steps, Almighty!-here, amid the crowd." . While reading the first two stanzas an image of a bustling road filled with people tending to their daily tasks comes to mind. This forms a quaint picture of a functional city in the reader's mind. With in these two stanzas the author incorporates some alliteration and end rhyme to create a flowing pattern in all of the stanzas.
             Stanzas three and four give a picture of sun light shining down on the "dwellings" of the citizens. The first stanza hints that God is generous and that he is giving the world sunshine, "Thy golden sunshine comes From the round heaven." These stanzas once again explain how God is everywhere in the city, "Thy Spirit is around." This shows the Romantic ideal of interest in that which is supernatural. A simile, "Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng-Like the resounding sea," is used to sh...